Cite as: 530 U. S. 428 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
cern about confessions obtained by coercion.1 384 U. S., at 445-458. Because custodial police interrogation, by its very nature, isolates and pressures the individual, we stated that "[e]ven without employing brutality, the 'third degree' or [other] specific stratagems, . . . custodial interrogation exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals." Id., at 455. We concluded that the coercion inherent in custodial interrogation blurs the line between voluntary and involuntary statements, and thus heightens the risk that an individual will not be "ac-corded his privilege under the Fifth Amendment . . . not to be compelled to incriminate himself." Id., at 439. Accordingly, we laid down "concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow." Id., at 442. Those guidelines established that the admissibility in evidence of any statement given during custodial interrogation of a suspect would depend on whether the police provided the suspect with four warnings. These warnings (which have come to be known colloquially as "Miranda rights") are: a suspect "has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires." Id., at 479.
Two years after Miranda was decided, Congress enacted § 3501. That section provides, in relevant part:
"(a) In any criminal prosecution brought by the United States or by the District of Columbia, a confession . . . shall be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given. Before such confession is received in evidence, the trial
1 While our cases have long interpreted the Due Process and Self-Incrimination Clauses to require that a suspect be accorded a fair trial free from coerced testimony, our application of those Clauses to the context of custodial police interrogation is relatively recent because the routine practice of such interrogation is itself a relatively new development. See, e. g., Miranda, 384 U. S., at 445-458.
435
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